A longtime resident of Uxbridge, Ted Barris has written professionally for 40 years - for radio, television, magazines and newspapers. The "Barris Beat" column began in the 1950s when his father Alex wrote for the Globe and Mail. Ted continues the tradition of offering a positive view of his community. He has written 16 non-fiction books of Canadian history and teaches journalism at Centennial College in Toronto.
A Year of Discovery?
My girls are making a gingerbread house with a friend, and we're listening to Liam Neeson read Chris Van Allsburg's The Polar Express. Soon we're going to reach the end of the story, and I am going to have to stop typing, as my eyes will be blurred from tears. I can't help but get more than teary-eyed when the boy describes how “at one time most of my friends could hear the bell,but as years passed, it fell silent for all of them. Even Sarah (his sister) found one Christmas that she could no longer hear its sweet sound.”
I look at my daughters. They are so in the moment, their biggest decision at this moment is whether to put a peppermint swirl or a ju jube on the house to make the front window. Their eyes are bright, their smiles wide and frosting-covered, their thoughts on one thing – Christmas. I watch my eldest in particular. She is nine,now. Her hair in pigtails, she's boppin' away to the Mariah Carey Christmas CD I've put on. She's all about the fashion, being “in”, even has a little “friend” at school that she's sweet on. She acts like she's all that and then some, and has the attitude to go with it. But she's the first one in line when we gather every evening to count how many sleeps till Santa comes, and do our Advent calendars. And my heart collapses as the thought goes through my head – is this the year her bell will stop making its beautiful sound?
She's already asking questions. She pokes around the gifts already under the tree, boldly announcing that they are all from “real people”. Wondering aloud if someone might write “From Santa” by mistake.
“Cuz he's not real, you know,” she mouths off to her sister, who's seven. Then she looks at me, to me, waiting for me to offer instant rebuttal to her defiant statement. Just this once, she wants me to tell her she's wrong. All I can stammer out is “What would make you think that?” She tells me some of the kids at school say that Santa's not real. He's really Mum and Dad. I ask her what she thinks. She pauses for a moment, tips her head, and replies knowingly “Oh, he's just got to be real.”
“Then he is,” I answer definitively, praying that the moment has passed. I know, however, that the dreaded one-on-one will come. That I can handle. What I can't handle is when. What I can't handle is realizing that she is nine, soon to be 10, and at the age when grown-up-ness, which is always creeping, takes one giant reindeer stride ahead. I would do anything to stop it from happening.
I remember the year I “discovered”. I remember finding a large gift under my parents' bed while doing the Christmas Eve vacuuming (some families carol, we cleaned). I quite clearly remember half-smiling to myself, muttering “I thought so,” and making a mental note to check for the gift the next morning. If it was part of the night's special deliveries, then that solved that mystery, didn't it?
I don't remember being sad. I don't remember being disappointed. I do remember feeling physically different, somehow. Heavier. More... knowing. Like I'd been granted admission to a club that had, until then, been inaccessible somehow. Grown up, I guess. I was 10.
I had obviously been questioning the whole business for a little while, going back and forth on it in my head. Whatever sparked the question in the first place, I have no clue. Does something just settle in on us, letting us know somewhere inside that it is really just too good to be true? And why does the “discovery” mark such a turning point in our young little lives? In many ways it's a harsh reality, and no reality should hit when one isn't even in double digits.
So it's a precarious time at our house. The eldest may join the club. Her seven-year old sister will wander in that grey zone for (hopefully) a couple more years. But the two are so close, I wonder if the older one will impart her worldly knowledge to the younger? What will that do to Christmas at our house? Because there is another little girl who is only just beginning to understand the entire Christmas thing. At four, this is her first year of incessant “How many sleeps till Santa comes?” She's just starting to learn the words to Jingle Bells. The wonder of it all has hit her full force, and will surely last five, maybe six years. I live in fear that, during an argument of fervent pitch, the type that only sisters can have, one of the older two will blurt out the news. Then what?
I know that families everywhere deal with this same sort of dilemma every year, and that mine is in no way special or unique. This is my first time round at all this, though, and I am really treading on thin ice. I don't ever want them to stop hearing the bell.
I was leaving a party a couple of days ago, and it seemed that an inordinate number of people told me to “enjoy the girls” this year. Think I'll do that. I pray that we all manage to hear a bell of some sort this Christmas. Blessings to you all, and have a Merry Christmas.
